Some
scholars believe that people become entrepreneurs because of intermediating
psychological motives. Examples of such scholars are Joseph Schumpeter (1934),
David McClelland (1961), and Hagen Everett (1963).
(a) Joseph
Schumpeter (1934) criticized earlier theories like that of Max Weber, which
sees entrepreneurship as a function of social, cultural or religious factors.
He posits that an entrepreneur is some one with a very strong will to achieve
power. Such entrepreneur could
see things in different ways from how other
persons see them, hence ethical and moral to entrepreneurs, ones the laws
governing such society are not broken. This strong will to achieve power could
easily be realized or satisfied by high acquisition of money. Schumpeter sees
an entrepreneur as a special person or extra-ordinary person in a society.
(b) McClelland
is famous for his n’ach theory, made popular in his book “The achieving
society”. He argues that the major reason compelling people to move into
entrepreneurship is the need for achievement. A society with many people who
have high need for achievement, therefore, will likely have many entrepreneurs,
while a contented or lazy society will not produce let alone cherish
entrepreneurship. The need for achievement could be propelled through child
rearing practices. children who are encouraged either by their parents or the
society to fend for themselves and take up the challenges of building the
society end up as entrepreneurs, while their mates who are given the
impression, consciously or unconsciously, that they should be taken care of by
the government or unconsciously, that they should be taken care of by the
government or economic development of a society, therefore, depends, on the
availability of a good number of people with this psychological variable-the
need for achievement.
(c) Hagen
Everett (1963), in his book “the theory of social change” sees creativity and
innovation as the main bases for entering entrepreneurship. Like McClelland, he
believes that creativity and innovation is driven by the need for achievement,
but he adds law, order, autonomy and excellence. He believes that those who do
not have high need for achievement are neither creative nor innovative. A
society with many creative and innovative personalities is bound to develop
economically. His theory does not recognize a common trader who buys and sells
without crating or modifying existing predict, service or method as an
entrepreneur.
(d) There
are other psychological views including the locus of control view. The locus of
control view believes that an entrepreneur will probably have strong internal
locus of control. This means that an entrepreneur believes in his or her
capabilities to commence and complete things, and events through his own
actions. This view is credited to Low & Macmillan (1988). By and large,
this approach has not quite succeeded in providing us with clear-cut criteria
for distinguishing entrepreneurs from non-entrepreneurs. Should all
entrepreneurs have identical traits and if they do, is it an advantage? What
the trait approach has done is to work for similarities among entrepreneurs.